


Letting the Picture Build

by autoschediastic



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Amnesia, Anal Fisting, Flashbacks, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Punch Fisting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-08 22:15:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1958091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autoschediastic/pseuds/autoschediastic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The man Steve used to know is so close to the surface it feels like Bucky could crawl out of this skin into the old one if he tried.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letting the Picture Build

“Do you remember,” Steve begins.

A lot of their conversations start this way. For the first few months, the answer was always no. Just a simple fact: no, Bucky didn't remember. After awhile, it became less fact and more like failure, a fresh wound in the waver of Steve's cautious smile, the split-second it took for hope to rebuild in the wake of disappointment. Too often the answer's still no, so many rips in a patchwork memory.

Early morning sunlight floods Steve's modest kitchen. As much as the lost years, the reality of his own existence, Bucky stumbles on the harsh, white-washed brightness of the modern day. It used to be Steve was always the one shining spot in a dingy, worn-torn world. Things had the decency back then to be as ugly as the times they were stuck in--there was no hiding from crumbling mortar and rusted iron, from blighted food and broken bodies.

Anything not perfect enough for this age gets swept into the shadows. Maybe that's why Steve's always so dumbfounded to find him here, sun-washed and every day a little more whole.

Steve's smiling over the rim of his mug. “You wool-gatherin' again?”

“Nope.” Bucky smiles back, mostly because it's hard not to. Steve's got a better handle on the quirks of modern language than he gives himself credit. When it's just the two of them, though, he's prone to slipping. Bucky's long forgotten old patterns of speech, but it's easy to pick up, fun to match tone and rhythm like the words themselves are the game. “Figured I'd enjoy this fine cuppa joe while you meandered your way to a point.”

“I was just thinking about that storm back in... '37?” Steve says, then shrugs. “It was mid-summer, anyway. Storm clouds swept in off the coast overnight and we all thought it was gonna be a boon, break the heat. The docks flooded and that tanker ended up shored. Wind howled so hard we got stuck inside for days without work.”

Bucky closes his eyes as Steve talks, letting the picture build itself in his head. Most of it comes from Steve's words and his imagination, but the burst pipe two floors up that leaked into Steve's apartment is pure memory. He remembers too worrying about rust in the water, and the loud clanging in the walls whenever the taps ran too long.

“Place got ripe 'cause we couldn't open the windows,” Bucky offers, eyes still shut. Could be that was another time and place. The room Steve let above the grocery for half a year, maybe. To knock a few bucks off the rent, Steve redid the lettering on the signs and Bucky'd helped repaint the store. The dumbass who did the upper levels painted all the windows shut. Old man Henderson nearly popped a vein his face went so red. “Hey, you remember Henderson?”

“The green grocer?” Steve swallows a sip of coffee, shaking his head. “Thought he was gonna smack you a good one over Alice.”

“Alice,” Bucky murmurs, thinking hard. No face swims to the surface.

“Henderson's niece,” Steve prompts. “She had it real bad for the tough guy with the the heart of gold always lookin' out for his little buddy Steve.”

“Right,” Bucky says, and consciously switches the Steve in the memories he's building to the little guy from the museum displays. “That punk kid. I remember him.”

Sometimes that's all he remembers. A few times now the Steve sitting there in a plain t-shirt and sweats has come as a complete surprise to him, healthy and strong and eye-to-eye when they stand. There's always a strange bitter-tinged relief that follows soon after. Whatever the reason for it, it's not a memory Bucky's bothered to chase. He's got enough tough pills to swallow.

“You got sick,” Bucky ventures, digging through scraps of old apartment buildings and stuffy summer days. “Didn't you? The second day in. On the floor with that old damp towel on your face....” He frowns into his coffee. With memories of Steve's fevers usually comes a cold pit forming in his gut.

“Not sick,” Steve says. He sets his mug on the table and stares at it for a moment, colour rising in his cheeks like the fever's found him through the memories. “Worn out.”

Bucky sits back heavily in his chair. There have been other memories along those lines, mostly quick flashes of skinny hands or a soft mouth or a thick cock, and always the vague notion that it's Steve.

Quietly, Steve says, “You remember.”

“Not enough.” Bucky looks again at his coffee wishing it were whiskey, and he finds that an old familiar urge. Seems he liked more than his share of booze back in the day. “Did we do that a lot?”

Again, Steve shakes his head. “Not that. Other things, sure.” His mouth quirks at the corners. “Wasn't for lack of trying, though.”

Mouth dry, Bucky says, “Tell me.”

“You'll remember,” Steve says, annoyingly certain. “You're remembering all kinds of stuff that I've forgotten.”

“But not that.” The raw scrape of metal on porcelain tells Bucky to ease his grip on the mug before it shatters like the last two. He tries focusing on the banging of those old iron pipes, the lash of rain against thin glass, the wind howling through the alleyway below. The family down the hall had something good on the boil, savoury and rich like a pudding. His stomach growled and Steve laughed, said, _You want those spuds you go get 'em yourself_.

Hazy through the memory, Steve says, “Those dames you chased would get you worked up good. You'd say you were sorry sometimes. Think you might've even meant it once or twice.”

“Sorry?” Steve's sweaty smiling face vanishes like it'd never been, Bucky's gut gone colder than the icy mountains he should've died in. But it doesn't fit. It sits jagged and not-right against everything else he's remembered, and this Steve is still smiling. “I'd say sorry 'cause--”

“'Cause you'd stop.”

_“Don't stop, don't,” Steve groans, stretched so taut Bucky can count each one of his ribs through paper-thin skin. The scuffed carpet Bucky lifted from out back the hotel when they renovated last year bunches beneath Steve's back, digs harsh red marks into his shoulders worse than the bare floor would've. The stink of sweat and sex, the honest-to-god filthy kind of sex that belongs in tea rooms and alleyways, fills Bucky's nose. Steve's as slick and loose as any woman, stuffed with four fingers to the knuckle, his bony knees held high by shaking hands as he pleads._

_Throat tight, Bucky says, “I'll hurt you,” and keeps a reverent_ You're so small _to himself. Guilt nips at him even as he relishes the trembling of Steve's slight frame; Steve would hate it. Treat it if not as a slight then worse, a challenge._

_“I can take it,” Steve rasps. “Buck, please, I-”_

_Bucky braces an arm beneath Steve's legs to ease his strain. Bright colour rushes in to fill the pale divots his fingertips dug into his thighs. Bucky's hand next to his seems so huge. That Steve's begging for it inside him makes Bucky ache in ways he's never known. He wants to do it, to see Steve split so impossibly wide, to fill him so completely he can barely stand it._

_Steve would take it all and more, and trust there'd be enough of Bucky left to pull them both out of the mess he's gotten them in._

_When Bucky pulls his fingers free just enough to add the press of his thumb is the first time he hears a whimper sound so grateful._

“Jesus,” Bucky breathes. He presses the metal of his fingers together. Warmth they've never felt lingers. He swallows against the dryness of his throat to ask, “Did we--?”

“No,” Steve says, a sly curve to his mouth the purists would never believe capable of their Captain America. “Not that time, and not for lack of trying.” He takes a casual sip of coffee. “At least not on my part.”

Holding tight to the memory of Steve's small body, Bucky says, “You couldn't.”

“ _You_ wouldn't. I figured you weren't so afraid of breaking me,” he says, as casually as he sipped, “as you were of me finding out how bad me being so much smaller than you got you going. Weren't so good at hiding it, Buck. That's why I figured maybe, you know, _after_....” He shrugs.

Bucky snorts. “No way.”

“No?” Steve hikes an eyebrow way up high.

“Could be I made a couple dumb calls back then, caught some of that stupid off you, but I don't need memories to know there's no way I was that goddamn dense.” That said, he goes off digging for some anyway. Frustration’s been his only reward when he's tried to make himself remember before, and this time's no different. He blows out a harsh breath and eases up on the tight clench of his jaw. “Help me out here.”

“There was that time.... What was her name,” Steve murmurs over the soft rasp of a hand rubbing at his throat. “Christine. Took a week before she'd even let you kiss her.”

“Christine,” Bucky says, and isn't surprised when again he finds no face to match the name. More and more he doubts he can blame the mad scientists for that one. Steve's is an elephant's memory for the skirts Bucky Barnes used to chase.

“Another one that got me all worked up, huh,” says Bucky, wry. He tries to imagine where in the days of the Howling Commandoes he found time to turn his eye to a lady rather than a rifle's sight. Downtime between raids more than likely. Maybe even before they set out the first time--it would've taken close to a week to get the crew and supplies together for that first mission, and he's sure he would've tried shipping out as an excuse to get a girl into his bed.

“You walked her home every night, then you'd come over to my place.” Not after, then. Another time before. While Steve's thumb rubs at the handle of his mug, Bucky tries calling up the image of that old apartment again. It comes easy this time. “You'd lean against the counter, put your hand right on it and give it a squeeze. You'd tell me--”

“She left me aching something fierce tonight,” Bucky says, and he can almost feel the sharp broken edge of that old countertop digging into the small of his back. “I'd ask, I asked--” He can hear the words, nearly taste them and the booze on his breath both. He'd tried to feel guilty. The first time, every time he came to Steve like that, he'd tried so hard to feel guilty.

He hadn't tried not asking.

Colour stains Steve's neck just at the collar of his shirt. He's not embarrassed. He holds steady Bucky's gaze. “Yeah?”

Bucky wets his lips, nods and wipes them dry again. Steve stays quiet, waiting. Caught in past and present both, Bucky says, “I'll put it in you nice and slow, Stevie, promise. Won't make you sore again.”

“Sore ain't a problem,” says one of the Steves.

_Bucky pushes away from the cupboards. From the quirk of Steve's mouth, he knows he's walking funny. His whole body aches. Even his mouth aches, barely stained with lipstick from Christine's brief goodnight. He's got a week's worth of kisses to give somebody, and Steve's lips are soft and full and parted as Bucky comes close, colour already rising in his upturned face. “Guess we ain't got no problem then at all,” Bucky says._

_“Guess so,” says Steve, and lets his eyes slide shut as Bucky pushes a hand into his hair, cradling the back of his head in one wide palm as he takes everything Bucky's dying to give._

The taste of Steve's black coffee is sharp on Bucky's tongue. Bucky's got one hand braced on the table, the other still holds Steve. His lips are damp and tingle at the soft brush of Steve's breath. The ticking of the yardsale clock on the wall is as loud as his heartbeat.

Voice as rough as gravel, he asks, “Can I do that again?”

Steve's smile curves against Bucky's face. “Which one?”

With a low growl, Bucky shoves forward. There was a time he loved Steve's smartass mouth as much as he regretted it. Got him and Steve both into more trouble than out of it. Like back then too it's Steve's tongue pushed greedily into his mouth, Steve's groan loud in the quiet morning.

Bucky's chair scrapes shrill over tile. The sound jolts him more than it does Steve; a whole pack of wild dogs could come howling through the kitchen and he's pretty damn sure Steve wouldn't bother to come up for air. Might've been Bucky who showed up aching, but seems to him Steve's the one who was waiting for it. Steve's got a good grip on his shoulders, wiry fingers digging deep--

_The muscles in Bucky's back made sore by another twelve hour stint on the docks stretch out deliciously as he bends in close and drops a purr straight into Steve's mouth. The old settee gives up a warning creak as Bucky braces a hand on the arm. His other hand slips low to cup Steve's ass, pull him forward and off the flattened cushions. Steve clings the whole way down to the rough wood floor, his slight weight easy to manoeuvre and this is about the one and only time he doesn't turn sour over it. His legs fall wide as Bucky pushes between them, back arching and hips lifting as he tries to squirm his way out of his clothes while Bucky's busy sucking deep red marks onto his slim neck. Steve's delicate skin holds colour like a dame's, a roadmap of where Bucky's mouth has been and where it's got to go._

_“Thought you wanted it slow,” Bucky says, hand shoved beneath the gaping waistband of Steve's pants to palm the bare curve of his ass. One of Steve's suspenders snaps free, clipping the inside of Bucky's arm. With his fingers pushing into the warm crack of Steve's ass, the sting barely registers. There's not much hair on the little guy, a few short blond wisps scratching against Bucky's fingertips before he finds the soft dry heat of Steve's asshole. As tiny as the rest of him, it gives easily as a couple slow strokes turn to pressure. Steve arches sharply, twisting half onto his side with his leg lifting high. One fingertip left at just the edge of breaching Steve's body, Bucky catches him up in another kiss._

_Steve goes along easily enough for a few more before he starts to squirm again. He says, “You're the one goin' on about_ slow _,” and gropes for Bucky's wrist. Bucky grins all the way through Steve's awkward fumbling, cock heavy and still aching but knowing he's gonna get some and get it but good eases the desperate edge that had driven him over here. Right up until Steve finally manages to wrest his arm free, drag Bucky's hand up to that kissed-red mouth and suck a couple fingers in straight to the knuckle. Steve's eyes, closed after the first taste of skin, open slowly. His tongue slips between Bucky's fingers, strokes all the way up to the tips. Times like these Bucky knows exactly how it feels when Steve's lungs up and quit on him._

_Spit glistening on Steve's lips and Bucky's fingers both, Steve says, “Now put 'em in me.”_

_“Don't have to fuckin' tell me twice,” Bucky says, yanking Steve's pants down past his knees._

_“Pretty sure I did.” Shoulders braced on the floor, Steve kicks one leg free. He's the one with the grin falling off his face this time as Bucky catches him under the knee, slips him a finger slow and smooth and easy. Bucky mutters a low curse over how quick Steve is to take it and goes for two instead, then more, relishing that this time he's got to work for it._

_“You forget it's Friday?” Steve asks, voice all hitched up like his eyebrow. “Gettin' old, Buck.”_

_“Friday?” Bucky echoes, trying hard to think around the tight clutch of Steve's ass as Steve huffs a laugh at him. Friday doesn't meant much aside from it's the day after Thursday, and Thursday's only a landmark in the week 'cause it's two-for-one at the dance hall on Court. That's when it hits him. Prime shipping season makes for those long days that are always messing him up. Wasn't two nights ago Rose begged off early and he came 'round Steve's place, it was last night._

_Bucky slows his rough fingering. “You sore?”_

_“Gonna be real sore if you stop now,” Steve mutters, trying to use his hold on Bucky as leverage to get things moving again._

_Bucky grins and goes for his fly. His shirt is all twisted up from Steve's clutching hands, and as much as he wants those hands on bare skin, he wants his cock in Steve more. He gets it out and does a shoddy job getting it wet. That Steve doesn't say a fucking word about it, just cants his hips high, gets Bucky growling again, shoving up and away long enough to snatch the dented tin of Vaseline off the sink. He drops to his knees between Steve's splayed legs with his cock already slicked, and scoops out another generous dollop to slap onto Steve. “Ain't got no sense,” he says, working it deep._

_“There's the pot callin' the kettle,” says Steve, the last of it gone shaky with the head of Bucky's cock lined up and pushing in. Steve's not so much loose as he is greedy, slowing things down more than he seems to realise by all his wriggling around. Bucky lets him do as he pleases, gaining inch after inch when he gauges Steve ready. It isn't until Bucky bottoms out, balls flush to Steve's ass and Steve's cock leaking all over both their shirts, that Steve goes quiet and still with a soft gasp. Before Steve has a chance to catch his breath, Bucky starts fucking him in earnest, a little easy still while he's not quite loosened up. Then harder, quick snaps of Bucky's hips that really get Steve clutching at him. When it comes to getting fucked, most folks sound the same--shallow breaths and small noises, broken words that turn to whimpers then sharp cries when it comes close to too much. Every noise Bucky's ever heard Steve make, though, those just sound like_ more _._

_“Bucky,” Steve groans. His hand skids up from Bucky's shoulder to grip the back of his neck and squeeze._ ”Bucky.”

“You feel so fuckin' good,” Bucky says, pressing sloppy kisses to Steve's jaw. There's still too many clothes between them but like hell he wants to stop long enough to do something about it. Tonight's probably gonna be like every other night, anyway, and Steve'll want to go again in a couple hours. Bucky answers Steve saying his name again with a groan, already imagining rolling Steve under him still loose and a little wet from this round. He's not gonna last much longer, not even with Steve begging him to. He'll slip Steve a couple fingers right after, maybe even leave his cock in this time while he does like Steve's been asking-- _“Fuck.”_

“I'm trying,” Steve says, wry.

Right on the cusp, Bucky freezes. Steve's hand is warm on the back of his neck and pulling a little where Bucky's hair is caught in his fingers. The kitchen tiles are slick beneath his palm where he's braced above Steve, Steve's knees drawn up and spread wide to cradle him cock against cock with all their clothes still on. When Steve squeezes his neck again, he shudders.

Steve says, “Must've been a good one.”

Bucky barks a laugh. He shakes his head, drags in air and laughs again. “Yeah,” he says, wetting his lips. “I was working up to, y'know. Or I was thinking about it. Something.”

Steve aims a pointed glance south. “Think you're still thinking about it.”

Bucky gives a playful shove with his hips before his brain catches up with his body. The man Steve used to know is so close to the surface it feels like Bucky could crawl out of this skin into the old one if he tried.

Instead of giving another apology he wouldn't mean, he asks, “Are you gonna tell me about those other times?”

Steve drags in a deliberately casual breath and lets it out on a slow, “I could.” His gaze flicks briefly to the bedroom. “Or you could stick to working it out for yourself.”

“That an invitation, Rogers?”

“Pretty sure it is.”

Bucky rolls to his feet and offers Steve a hand up. For a heartbeat, the hand that clasps his is made of paper-thin skin and more bone than flesh. He firms his grip, fingers digging into the meat of Steve's palm. “C'mon,” Steve says, hauling off his shirt by the collar. That his hair's too short to flop into his eyes gives Bucky pause. He shakes it off and casts around for the Vaseline tin.

From halfway down the hall, Steve calls, “You've got that look, Buck.”

“You can't even fucking see me,” Bucky yells back. Steve keeps going, disappearing around the corner before Bucky makes it out of the kitchen. A quick check by the window seat doesn't turn up the grease there either. “What look?”

“Same one you got last time.” By the time Bucky hits the bedroom's threshold still empty-handed, Steve's naked. All the fever scars are gone. The deep curve of Steve's spine is straight, the knobby joint of his right shoulder is smooth, there's no ugly twist to his ankle. Steve stands tall and broad and strong, and the only thing that's familiar about him is the crooked smile on his face. This, Bucky thinks, this is what it was like the day he learned about Erskine's serum.

Before Steve can ask if he's okay, Bucky gives a single sharp nod. He pushes away from the door and deliberately puts metal to Steve's skin, staring hard at his fingers splayed wide on Steve's chest. Focused on pushing the past aside, he doesn't notice the shivers chasing his touch until Steve's hand comes to rest lightly on his forearm. He glances up at Steve's softened mouth. “You like that.”

“Did you think I wouldn't?” Steve asks, sharp as ever.

“Didn't think about it,” Bucky lies. He drops his hand lower, crooks a smile of his own. “Couldn't improve on this, huh?”

Steve's laugh is mostly air. “Got a little bigger.”

“Looks pretty much the same to me,” Bucky says, taking Steve's cock in a firm grip. There's no sensation of heat against his fingers, or texture, only pressure. But that and watching the slow slip of Steve's foreskin is enough. “Guess they didn't figure Captain America needed the snip.”

“Probably just grow back anyway,” Steve says, and laughs right in his face when his head jerks up. Hand still on his forearm, Steve backs up the couple steps. He turns, knee on the bed, and says as he crawls to the middle, “Been awhile, but don't go so slow I start falling asleep up here, okay? Bottom dresser drawer.”

Curiosity at exactly what Steve's telling him to fetch is enough to pull his attention away from the spread of Steve's thighs and the heavy hang of his cock and balls between them. The bottom drawer, one of those deep double ones, turns out to be filled with mismatched pieces of scorched and torn uniforms, a slew of S.H.I.E.L.D. tactical equipment, and sex toys, all arranged in neat stacks. Bucky grabs an impressively realistic if generously oversized dildo and holds it up.

“What a man's gotta do,” Steve says, then jerks his chin sideways. “Right at the end, with the gloves.”

Dropping the dildo, Bucky picks up both the pair of long black rubber gloves and the garish red water bottle beside it. “FistPowder,” he reads doubtfully. Steve really never did have much time for taking things slow.

“Future ain't all bad.” While Bucky reads the rest of the label, Steve reaches out to snag a pillow. “It's mixed up already.”

“'Course it is.” Tossing the bottle onto the bed, Bucky shakes out the gloves. As easy as it is to picture Steve ballsy enough to stride into a store to pick this shit up, it's just as hard to imagine the legend the world's made of Captain America doing the same. “You gonna watch this?”

Not needing Steve's nod, Bucky starts pulling one glove on over his metal arm. It goes on smooth and easy, a hell of a lot more than the one over flesh. Each snap against skin as he tugs on the second one higher hits Steve harder than it hits him. By the time he's done and given both arms an experimental flex, Steve's so hard he's leaking onto the bedsheets.

“Didn't have these before, did we,” Bucky murmurs mostly to himself as he settles onto the bed. Steve jumps when Bucky slaps a hand to his flank, then gets in good and close draped over his back. Glossy black rubber looks good pressed to his flushed face. “Not gonna ask me for it like you used to?”

“Asked just like this a couple times,” Steve says, pushing his ass back briefly. “The uniform came with private quarters on base.”

Bucky strokes a hand down Steve's side. He doesn't remember much from their war days, and what he does isn't anything worth revisiting. More important right now is the way Steve jerks when rubber catches the fine hairs on his thigh and how he presses his chest flush to the bed. Easing back, Bucky frames Steve's ass in black. Pulls just a little to expose him.

“Looks as fuckin' small as ever to me,” Bucky says, but with lubricant dripped onto his asshole, Steve's all out of laughs. Bucky rubs a couple fingers through it to slick up. He sticks with slow all the same as he first pushes into Steve--his metal fingers don't have even the slight give of flesh and bone. With all those memories so close to the surface, he isn't surprised by how quickly muscle gives way to a few tender strokes. From Steve's sharp gasp, though, seems Steve didn't count on a few fingers turning to the tight knot of four quite so fast.

Leaving them wedged halfway home, gaze on pink skin shining wetly in the sunlight, Bucky says, “Didn't want you conking out on me already.”

“Think I'm good,” says Steve, along with another push back to prove it.

“Bet you told me that a lot.” Flexing his fingers a little and watching the shudder that goes through Steve, Bucky presses in deeper. “Tell me about those fancy Captain's quarters.”

Like the words are a stage cue, an image springs to life in Bucky's mind: a room cramped but serviceable, with a writing desk littered with maps, a neat bunk, a wardrobe, even a tiny bathroom. Luxurious compared to field accommodations. Along with the memory comes the notion that Steve tried to get a similar room for him, one that he'd refused.

“...lot like this,” Steve's in the middle of saying. His arms stretch out to grip the edge of the mattress as his hips work. The image of him now is overlaid with an image from before, his shirt rucked high and metal tags jangling. Too impatient to strip, he'd hauled Bucky into that small room and they'd fucked with Steve's dress uniform half hanging off him. “Had to practically fuck myself, Buck, what're you doin' back there?”

“Watching.” Concentrating on the present while the past's only teasing him shouldn't be so hard. A twist with his fingers curved just enough to hook on slick rosy flesh freezes Steve in place like a photograph. He spreads them slightly, not too carefully, and brings his other hand up to rub a finger between them, wondering if he's done this exact same thing before. Steve doesn't startle when he tries to nudge him wider, only groans and sinks into it, and while that's a hell of a lot of fun to watch, it doesn't answer the question.

“I could ask,” Bucky says, again mostly to himself; Steve's listening, he's sure. “Probably found out for myself, though. Big money says I was a hands-on kinda guy.” Wondering now if Steve can tell the difference between flesh and metal, he switches from hand to hand as Steve's body loosens even further. They fall into a steady rhythm punctuated by Steve's small groans, him forward and Steve back, until the switch-off is instead a thumb tucked close to his palm and the whole of his hand sinking smoothly into Steve. While Steve's still gasping, he curls his hand into a fist and draws back only enough to hint at the idea of wedging Steve so wide.

Steve, face shoved into the pillow, comes.

“Already?” Bucky laughs. “You had more stamina when you were a little guy.” He uncurls his fingers slowly while Steve's still trembling inside and out. If he had a preference before between watching Steve come or feeling it, he doesn't now. He's pretty sure in their old lives this would be the moment he'd ease to a stop, if they even got this far. And while desire's something he's been slow to relearn, he has very little of it for this to be over so soon. Even with only the sensation of pressure against his hand, he can imagine--or maybe he remembers--the heat of Steve's body and the strange, delicate textures inside him.

Steve's face is still half-hidden by the pillow, but every gentle stroke of Bucky's fingers reverberates through him in small twitches and short gasps, in the restless twisting of his own fingers in the sheets. When Bucky starts to pull back again, gaze jumping from Steve's pleasure-slack mouth to the grudging stretch of his hole around the heel of Bucky's hand, Steve grits out, “Buck, please, not yet.”

“Don't worry,” Bucky says, and hears his own voice from decades ago whispering the same thing. His eyes go out of focus as he's back in that old decrepit apartment with the stolen rug and the air thick with sweat and sex and the storm still raging outside. _”Not gonna stop,” he says, grip tight on the back of Steve's knees to push them high, ass lifted off the carpet as he pushes into Steve as easily as he could a woman. “Gonna see if we can't get you to go off harder'n last time.”_

“Not a bad idea,” Bucky says, shaking off the past. He rocks into Steve not with his cock--though fuck knows he's hard enough to do it and wanting it too, a sensation so new he almost likes leaving the desperate twist in his guts unanswered--but with his hand. The sharp arch of Steve's back melts into a low curve only to arch again when deep steady pushes become a slow withdraw. This time, the heel of Bucky's hand makes it past the tightest clench of Steve's body, then his thumb is free, his fingers too until only the tips remain. Before Steve can ask, he begins to fuck, his hand sinking deep and pulling free again in the rhythm of vague memories. Steve takes it easily but not at all quietly, tearing the fitted sheet free of the mattress and moaning encouragements as if this is his one and only chance.

“Didn't do it like this before, did we,” Bucky says, Steve's shaky groan confirming what he managed to already know. “Never fucked you with it,” gets a louder groan and a greedy shove of Steve's hips that forces Bucky inside him past the wrist. A hand to Steve's flank stops him there, gives him a moment to breathe before Bucky tries for and gains one more inch past that. “Even when you could've taken it,” is half memory, half a guess, “I never let you.”

“Always knew better'n I did when to quit,” Steve says, short of breath like pure physical exertion never makes him. He shudders hard at a simple curl of Bucky's fingers, and harder again when Bucky changes direction mid-push. It's so easy to picture a smaller Steve in his place, knobby spine in sharp relief as his hips lift higher, that Bucky's not so sure what's real memory and what's his imagination.

“Hey, hey, Steve,” Bucky says like he used to when he wanted to get Steve's attention, as sure about that as he is about where this is going next. He cups Steve's cock, black rubber stark against its deep red flush. Steve's pretty much hard again already. Easy but not too slowly, Bucky pulls his hand entirely free and pushes in deep again before Steve's done groaning. Another go gets that groan spilling into a second, then a third. One more and Steve's shaking hard as the ninety-pound scrap of a fella in Bucky's head. “Think I can fuck another one out of you?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, without hesitation and the same blunt honesty as always. He twists to fix Bucky with a stare to match, blue eyes framed by wet lashes and the dark flush on his cheeks. “Yeah, you can.”

Bucky mutters a low curse. Fingers pressed together to a tight point, he shoves his hand into Steve. Steve's near-silent for it, breath caught in his lungs, but the jolt of Bucky pulling roughly free only to plunge back in drives a howl out of him. Bucky's own lungs ache with trapped air, his mouth hanging slack as he watches Steve struggle to stay braced. Grabbing his hip when it looks like he's about to go down, Bucky keeps going, his cybernetic arm untiring, free of the throbbing ache in his dick but just as relentless. Steve's half-lost his voice again, making more noises than words, but Bucky's heard those before. Seen them written on Steve's face even. This time, though, he's listening to what Steve's telling him.

When Steve comes a second time, head thrown back and body pulled bow-string tight, Bucky doesn't even pause as he tugs open his jeans. Leaving his fingers hooked inside Steve, he lines up, drives deep, fucks. Steve muffles a pleasured scream in the meat of his arm.

Bucky's ready to come--he's _been_ ready--but his body isn't Steve's. He heals like Steve, and scars like Steve doesn't. Where pain doesn't take him down, enough drugs or alcohol will. If he's only got a single go in him, he's making it a damn good one. Loud enough for Steve to hear over his own heavy broken breaths, Bucky asks, “Again?”

Steve nods quickly, wetting his lips with a swipe of his tongue. He swallows hard a few times before he manages a yes, then a few times more before he repeats himself. That Bucky hasn't stopped--that Bucky's slid his fingers deeper, brought his other hand into play and grit his teeth at the extra pressure against his cock--only makes Steve say yes again. Over and over Steve says it until up rises the old fear that he really won't stop unless he hasn't got a choice.

“One more,” Bucky grates. He risks a glance at Steve stretched so wide around him, black rubber and metal and flesh buried deep in Steve's body, and then quickly squeezes his eyes shut. “You hear me? You get one more.”

Steve's final yes sounds more like begging than understanding. Bucky'll take it. They're more evenly matched now in strength than they've ever been, so if it comes to holding Steve down it won't be as easy as a hand around bone-thin wrists. On a hunch Bucky leans forward, his weight bearing down and _into_ Steve, and starts his own, “Do you remember,” with the chill of Brooklyn winter on his back and Steve pressed tight and burning hot as stove to his chest. If Steve answers, it gets lost in cries either past or present.

As much as Steve could keep going, as much as he wants to, Bucky's hit his limit. His whole body's aching, his pulse pounding in his skull and his skin threatening to split with how much _he_ wants. Rearing back, he frees up both hands to grab onto Steve's hips. He fucks Steve with the relentless, mission-driven focus they gave him, and when he comes it's fast and sudden and so shocking he chokes on his own breath. He yanks Steve in as tight as they can get, screwing deep with about as much finesse as a sailor straight off the boat, and still Steve moans for him.

“Fuck,” Bucky rasps, and shuffles back on shaky knees long before he's ready. “Promised,” he says, wiping his mouth against his shoulder, “promised you one more, pal, just one,” and braces himself with a hand on Steve's ass as he slides first his fingers, then his hand into Steve, then a little more slick as sin. He keeps Steve loose from the inside out until he can pull free so easily that he closes his hand into a tight fist and fucks into Steve with the bluntness of his knuckles. Steve cries out, still for a split-second before he hauls himself off Bucky’s fist only to shove back onto it, begging with his body for Bucky to punch into him again and again. The edges of Bucky’s vision begins to blur but he doesn't waver, doesn't let Steve's fitful, greedy rocking break his rhythm. If it's five minutes or fifty before Steve finally shudders weakly and comes, Bucky doesn't know. His goal reached, his mind goes blank. He hangs in limbo for a few panicked moments, awareness rushing in as Steve drops to the wrecked sheets, carrying Bucky with him. His sure, steady presence quiets most of the white-noise in Bucky's head; carefully measured breaths slowly take care of the rest.

After a handful of minutes, Bucky peels off a glove, comments, “That's a fuckin' mess.”

“Yeah,” Steve murmurs. His hair whispers against the pillow as he turns his head. That flush still sits high on his cheeks. “You're gonna hafta clean it up, too.”

A grin tugs at Bucky's mouth. “Same old, same old.”

Steve says, “Yeah,” again, slow and warm as summertime molasses. His eyes are half-closed. He takes a deep breath, then another. “Do you remember,” he starts.

Bucky stays silent. Probably not. Funny enough, it's not about yes or no anymore.


End file.
